Professional Services

TIRF offers professional services to individuals and organizations in the field of language education. In line with its mission of promoting both research and best practices to help improve the use of English in the evolving landscape of language education, the Foundation seeks to work directly with stakeholders around the world to help them meet their goals.

Some of TIRF’s greatest organizational strengths include the collective knowledge and experience of the Foundation’s Trustees, and the network it has in our field. TIRF Trustees come from diverse backgrounds, in terms of geographic location and populations served, and it is the profession of language education that unites the work of the Foundation.

There are currently several types of services TIRF offers:

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Teacher Education and Professional Development Program Review

As a foundation for English language education, TIRF (The International Research Foundation for English Language Education) gives high priority to the development of a coherent program of research in language learning and teaching, dissemination of that research, and other related professional services associated with the continuous improvement of both research and language teaching and learning. Providing systematic reviews of existing English language teacher education and professional development programs, both online and face-to-face, is one of the professional services provided by TIRF.

Program Evaluation for Global Language Centers

Via this type of service, the Foundation evaluates the current status of language centers relative to the vision and mission of the university and/or the parent organization. TIRF Trustees recommend to language centers a strategic plan and best practices for its structure, program management, curricula, extra-curricular activities, course offerings, professional development, teaching materials, teaching methodologies, and testing and assessment efforts. The goal of this type of service is to equip language center students with high levels of communicative competence, both oral and written, when completing their studies, while ensuring language centers are efficiently and effectively operated.

Professional Development for Program Directors

Through this service offering, TIRF seeks to help both in-service and prospective English language program directors in both ESL and EFL settings to improve their administrative, managerial, and professional skills to be competent and effective in supervising teachers and operating viable and dynamic programs.

Classroom Research Training Program

One of the available programs is on language classroom research. This program will help teachers plan and execute their own research projects. While teaching experience is useful for participants in this program, no previous research training experience is expected. Programs are presented in a one-week format but can be specialized and extended to meet the needs of the client organization.

TIRF Talks

Utilizing its vast network of language education professionals, including its internationally recognized Trustees, the Foundation offers professional speaker services to organizations around the world. TIRF’s speakers can provide professional development sessions online or face-to-face and can often be delivered in conjunction with on-site training sessions. The Foundation’s most recent speaker service program was custom developed for the China-based organization, Chengdu Duoweimingju Institute of Education. Via this partnership, TIRF is delivering online and on-site professional development opportunities for teachers, administrators, and researchers throughout China. Learn more at http://www.tirfonline.org/tirf-talks/.

Commissioned Research & Publications

Since 2009, TIRF has served the field of language education by producing commissioned research reports on various topics. Such reports have included the role of English in multinational corporations, mobile-assisted language learning, English language training for today’s workforce, online language teacher education, and others. TIRF’s most recent commissioned research project is its Language Education in Review (LEiR) series. Via this initiative, TIRF is producing papers on topics of interest to all types of stakeholders in language education. The first paper produced was on the topic of English as a medium of instruction and the second paper focuses on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages. Further information about TIRF publications can be found at http://www.tirfonline.org/publications/.

Other Services

Various Professional Development Training Programs
Research and Publications Training
For more information about these services, please write to [email protected].